We have terminated the 401K plan at work, so I need to roll over my balance to an IRA. I have a balance of over $100,000 and want a decent selection of options in an IRA, and preferably the ability to trade individual stocks too.
Is Fidelity or Vanguard the way to go? What about Charles Schwab? Anyone to avoid?
I think those are all good choices. In general, you want to look at fund families that have low fees to avoid eating up your return. Vanguard’s are typically very low.
You could give it to a traditional broker, but if you are looking to manage it yourself any of the internet trading services can handle it as well. When I rolled over my 401k I used, ameritrade, for example, and Etrade and several others could handle it as well. I believe the advantage when doing this is that commissions are lower- I know that Ameritrade was $11.99 for individual stock trades and $13.99 for Mutual funds (not all mutual funds can be obtained from Ameritrade, but most big ones can be). If you are looking into Vanguard/Fidelity, etc ask about their commissions & fees vs Ameritrade, ETrade, etc.
For a place like Vanguard, you’re going to pay more for stock trades, but get their funds cheaper.
Not that you asked this, but Vanguard has retirement funds like a “2025”, “2035” or “2045” depending on when you think you’ll retire. The fess are VERY low (do NOT underestimate the damage fees will do to your portfolio) and each fund has a mixed of US & Foreign Stock, and Bonds that they believe are a good allocation of your assets.
At the very least, if you want to trade. . .put about 95K into such a fund, and trade with the rest at an online discount brokerage (Ameritrade, e.g.). If you’re beating that fund at the end of 5 years, pat yourself on the back.
Stormont.
I think Fidelity does this too but I think they charge 1% per year, which is a lot more than I want to pay someone. I will have to see what Vanguard charges. I believe you can switch funds around in Vanguard without a fee as long as they are Vanguard funds, but I don’t want to put everything in one company’s offerings.
I had a much easier time figuring this out with the 401K!
Here’s a link to their 2045 fund.
The 3 year cost of having $10,000 in it is $68. That’s fees of about .2%. You will not find a cheaper fund. Compared to your 1% fund, that’s a difference of about $230 over the next 3 years, but it’s more than just $230. That’s $230 that WON’T be compounded/reinvested over the next 30 years. If my calculations are correct, a fund that grows at 10% each year, with a 1% fee will have about 16% less money in it after 20 years compared to a fund that grows at 10% each year and has a .2% fee. The cheaper fund would only have to grow at about 9% each year to match the performance of the first.
Here’s a link to other retirement funds.
The nice thing about that is that you can truly “set it and forget it”. They allocate more to bonds as you get closer to the target date.
Damn it. 
Thanks, Trunk, I will definitely look into those.
I’ve got my rollover IRA money in one of the Vanguard Target Retirement funds described above. The nice thing is that if you don’t want to think about it, you can just leave the money there, and Vanguard will adjust the stock/bond split as your retirement date approaches.
Ditto
It’s funny how some things mean totally different things in different cultures…
Okay someone explain “stormont” since I have no idea what you’re talking about.
They really are a good investment.
And, I’m not saying that like “GET RICH QUICK. MAKE MILLIONS BY DOING NOTHING.”
I mean: it’s a good investment like it is low-cost, will grow and compound over time, has reduced volatility as you near retirement, and takes no effort on your part.
Not to turn this into a discussion on investing fees, but I was reading something recently where the guy was saying that investing is the one thing where a higher gets you a worse product.
You pay more for wine or a car, and presumably you’re getting a better wine or car. You pay more for your investments and you get worse investments – because money is the thing you’re buying and higher cost investments don’t (on average) have higher returns.
This is predicated on the fact – FACT – that “past performance does not guarantee future results”. It’s perhaps even negatively correlated with it. Regardless, the common statistic is that each year 2/3 of all actively managed mutual funds are outperformed by the S&P when you figure in the costs. You want one of the 1/3 that outperforms it? Yeah, we all do. Good luck finding it. Grab an index fund and feel good that you’re beating most of the people in the market.
Stormont is the Northern Irish parliament building and is currently used for the NI Assembly. The Good Friday Agreement is also sometimes known as the Stormont Agreement.
In Britain IRA=Irish Republican Army (i.e. terrorists). If you say ‘IRA’ to a Brit then we are more likely to think of shady, power-hungry, quasi-governmental forces rather than…um…nevermind.
I will throw out a vote for Charles Schwab.
Schwab’s rollover IRAs would be free of any fees, given your balance, and they offer over 800 no-load mutual funds. The NL funds can be bought and traded without a fee, provided you hold them for a certain length of time. Schwab’s fees for using a broker to trade stocks are high, but if you are an infrequent stock trader, and are comfortable using the internet, their fees for online trading are not much higher than discount houses.
Any of the big brokerage places (Vanguard, Schwab, Fidelity etc.) should be able to handle your retirement account and provide access to pretty much any investments you choose. I haven’t done a 401(k) rollover - my money from my previous employer is still in their 401(k) but we do have IRAs through Fidelity and their services are decent. You can invest in other companies’ funds - I’m pretty sure my Fidelity account could purchase shares of Vanguard-owned funds, for example, and my husband and I each have some of our IRA money invested in third-party funds (not Fidelity, but not one of the other biggies either). I know I could purchase individual stocks through the IRA; it’s just like any other brokerage account, really.
Look at what tools the various providers offer; confirm that you’re not locked into their company-owned funds (e.g. Vanguard offers some good funds and their fees are low but what if you fall in love with a Schwab fund and want to throw a little money that way).
One warning (I’m sure you know this already but nobody has specifically mentioned it): make sure you don’t have your hands on the money at all - if the 401(k) plan writes you a check, for example, they’ll withhold tax and penalty just as if you’d cashed it out. You would then have to come up with that chunk of cash yourself when you redeposit it in the brokerage account - or you’ll eat the tax/penalty on it. This would suck. So make sure they transfer the money directly to the IRA provider on your behalf.
You’re right - some people are under the impression that the check can be made out to them and they can then put it in an IRA without taxes/penalties as long as they do it within the allowed 60 days. Not so -they have to come up with the taxes and penalty that were withheld.
A 401K plan CAN send the check to the person - as long as it’s *made out[/i[ to the IRA provider. That is, the 401K doesn’t have to send the check directly to the IRA provider - it just has to be made out to them.